Movie 3: Igor

When the land of Malaria is plagued by storm clouds, King Malbert comes up with the idea of becoming a land of evil scientists and holding the world to ransom to keep the economy up. Anyone with a hunchback is part of a second class of citizens, the Igors, who act as assistants for the various evil scientists. One Igor has a dream to become a scientist himself, and when his boss is killed due to general incompetence he has his shot by creating life. Unfortunately his creation isn’t evil, and when he tries to have her brainwashed Clockwork Orange style the channel is switched turning her in to an actress. What is an Igor to do?

Well, an Igor will try and make her evil while being plagued by Eddie Izzards Dr Shaudenfraud. The idea of Igors being a group of people isn’t a new one by any means. Discworld is a big example of this. In fact you can spot a lot of this movie coming from a mile away. And the first half can be a bit on the meh side. This is bolstered up somewhat by two of Igor’s earlier inventions, Scamper the immortal and suicidal rabbit voiced by Steve Buscemi and Brain voiced by the extremely gay guy from Will and Grace. More Scamper than Brain really, though the later comes in to his own with the rest of the movie in it’s second half.

The animation style was pretty reminiscent of Henry Selick’s animation (see Movie 1) and it looks like the 3D cartoon that Tim Burton didn’t make. Doesn’t quite play that way, though there is a steam punky and gothy atmosphere to the whole thing. Some of the humour is quite twisted in a way that I really enjoyed. There’s nothing like a giant ophan Annie smashing stuff up.

It’s hardly Oscar winning stuff, but it is very enjoyable. Dunno how much kids will get out of it, maybe the just double digit ones, as it doesn’t really go for any gross humour that you’d probably expect from the set up and that certainly could have been half the movie. Personally I’m glad that wasn’t the case though. Well worth a look on a rainy afternoon.

Next up: District 9